


Uniforms

by NotQuiteHydePark



Category: Excalibur (Comic), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Costumes, F/F, F/M, Fashion & Couture, Inspired by Fun Home, Nostalgia, Sharing Clothes, Song: Ring of Keys (Fun Home), Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 10:17:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18826660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotQuiteHydePark/pseuds/NotQuiteHydePark
Summary: Kitty used to dress up in all sorts of outrageous outfits. Why did she stop?





	Uniforms

_Today_

I’ve just come back from a press conference and am trying to find my way back to the Director’s Office in the Xavier Insitute in Central Park when Pixie grabs my wrist at the base of the staircase. “Professor Kitty?”

“Megan.” It’s never clear how formal or informal the older kids expect me to be. “What’s going on?”

“I was looking through my own trunk for the fancy dress ball—you know the kids are having one; Quentin makes fun of it but of course it was his idea too— and then I was looking through some of the old photos for our mutant history course, and… I mean… you didn’t always look like you do now.”

“I was thirteen in some of those photos, Pixie.” Thirteen and a half, a voice in my head says. That voice will never not be there. “Is that what you mean? I was the youngest X-Man for a while.” (And Pixie, for who knows how long, was the youngest mutant. And I was lost in space.) “If this is going to be a very serious conversation, I’m ready for that, but we need to sit down.” I feel like I’ve been pushed back against the bannister, though nobody’s literally touching me: Pixie seems ready to flap her pink wings.

“It’s not how old you were,” Megan says. “It’s how you looked. You had a different costume every five minutes. I think you said once that you had a costume generator? You had So Much Clothes. There’s a picture in rainbow colors with roller skates. You were a human Pride flag.”

I bet I know what’s coming next: why don’t I just go march in a Pride parade? Why don’t I—But that’s not what’s next. 

“You had all those royal blue tunic and tights costumes with that sash, when you first moved to Britain,” Megan continues. “And then…. after a certain moment it’s just blue and yellow and black and yellow and official X-Men training uniforms.” She pauses; pink flutters behind her. “Professor K, what happened to you to make you stop liking clothes?”

 

_One month ago_

Ororo must have known that I would want everything on the table right away: no set of surprises, nothing gradual, and nothing by halves. Otherwise Storm would have texted or emailed rather than showing up on a seventh-floor balcony just after I got home from barre. 

“Kitten, it’s so wonderful to see you,” Ororo says, alighting majestically, her Mohawk flaring in the breeze she generates. Those silver gloves look new. Who else calls me “Kitten”? Who else ever has?

“We need to talk.” But not in my apartment; not if you show up with no warning and I need caffeine. Not even if you’re Storm, majestic goddess. Especially not if you’re Storm. I need a safe place that isn’t a mess. With caffeine.

Ororo’s white eyes and her white Mohawk point right at me. “You have nothing to apologize for, Kitten,” she says. Meaning it’s OK that I quit the X-Men to move back to Chicago again. And again. Am I a grownup now? Do I want to be? 

Who do I want to be? Suddenly I’m aware of my surroundings, my body language (wary, engaged, a bit awed), my very, very quiet sartorial choices. I’ve got my black coat on for spring, with the lapels up, and my hair in a bun, as if I were on my way to the dance studio, instead of back from it. Storm is my oldest confidante, the adult I first trusted when I was thirteen (and a half). Why can’t I let my hair down around her?

“I want you to rejoin the X-Men,” Ororo says, “because I’m leaving.” Does that mean I have to be the adult now?

_Years ago_

Ororo wears a boat-neck magenta tunic with matching skirt, metal bands around her neck—it’s not quite a choker, there’s some other word for it—and these impossibly cool round sunglasses, along with a beret that holds her hair back, because if her hair went loose she’d be too cool to walk through town; she’d have to fly. She’s taking me to meet Stevie Hunter in Stevie’s dance studio. I am thirteen and a bit more than a half. 

I have never known anybody who can control the wind, anybody from Kenya, from Egypt, from any part of Africa, anybody with that kind of authoritative voice, anybody with that poise, anybody I’d trust more than I trust this adult woman who is, also, impossibly cool. I want her to be my mom older sister cool auntie head teacher combat trainer confidante forever. Did I mention that she can fly? And not like Superman flies, like it’s one person shot from a circus cannon, but like the whole of nature propels her up there? Or that she always tells the truth? 

She tells me the coast is clear and I phase through the front door of the Comton Building, and then we walk up the stairs. “Well, kitten, we’ve arrived,” she whispers, holding the door for me.

Stevie has her back to us and her leg up, in legwarmers, doing a barre exercise. “Afternoon, folks!” Stevie says. “You’re right on time.”

I want Ororo to stay here with me and watch me while I do the things normal kids do. I don’t want to be her. I couldn’t be her. But I want to be more like her than I’ll ever be.

_Years ago_

I’m thirteen and almost a half. I’m in a malt shop in Deerfield and this morning I phased through my bedroom floor for the first time. (There will be other times.) I’ve just met a creepy blond lady (I don’t know why she’s creepy yet, nor do I know someday she’ll be my creepy teammate). Also a head of school whom I’ll see first as a guy in a wheelchair, because I am 13 1/2 and nondisabled, and a big muscular guy pushing that wheelchair, whom I will almost immediately develop a confusing set of feelings about. Those feelings will never go away. It’s a big day.

But now I’m in the malt shop, eight blocks from my house, relieved to get out of my house, and black raspberry ice cream is dripping from my spoon, all over my parfait glass, down my arm, because I can’t take my eyes off the tall, low-voice, mocha-skinned, white hair woman in a shiny black verse who’s eating her ice cream across from me, and looking at me like I’ve got a destiny. I’ve never encountered anyone with such poise. Am I really the girl she thinks I can be?

I mentally compare her physical appearance to the black kids at my school, and I am so gauche as to say so, because I am completely unfiltered and I am not quite 13 1/2, and she doesn’t wince, or grimace, or anything; instead she says “I am one of a kind, and so are you.” And then she asks me if I’ve ever heard of the X-Men.

And I ask for her autograph. God, who even was I at that age?

There’s a red egg-shaped gem in her costume, at the base of her throat. I can see myself reflected in her eyes. Her headdress (part of her superhero costume, I bet) is made of the darkest black fabric I’ve ever seen. There’s no way I will ever be one tenth that cool.

Can she teach me to be one tenth that cool?

 

 _Years ago_

I'm fourteen. Scott's just come back to the team. Scott and Logan and Professor X and I get the warmth we need on a cold night from a campfire. We're on that exceptionally creepy island.. Scott and Logan, as usual, argue. Both of them want so hard to train me, to keep me safe, to help me stay a kid and survive the experience.

I'm talking to the professor about Scott. "Being an X-Man is basically all he knows," I say. "He hasn't really done anything else since he was a kid." Neither have I. I'm still a kid.

"I don't want to turn out like him," I say. "Wolverine has done other things. Wolverine has seen the world." So has Ororo. I want to turn out like her. But the professor won't give me that option. "This is a job. It's not me. I want to wear a uniform. Not a costume." 

What I say is half true. I'd rather wear a uniform if wearing a costume-- being an X-Man, having the X-Men be your identity- means I turn out like Scott. But I love clothes. I love dressing up. I love the idea that I can decide how I look. And I love... Professor X must know who I love. But he's never said anything about it. I'm making up my costume in my head. But I'm not going to wear it for a while.

_Years ago_

Everyone thinks I’m old enough to be in college, but I’m not in college; I’m living on Muir Island, where it’s cold all the time and so windy it chafes bare skin and a clear day is an exception to the rule.

On one of those exceptional days Lucas Bishop, of all people, shows up with a giant box. “Jubilee informed me that she would punch my lights out if I failed to deliver these.” And in the box are skirts and a flowy top and bright leggings and scarves in my colors, the colors of the Shadowcat uniform that I wore the whole time I was having cross-time, cross-space, out-there adventures with Rachel Summers-and/or-Grey. Who’s no longer around. She’s out there in her own future, fixing her own timeline, the one where she was born. The one where she grew up around future me.

I miss her. I miss Ororo. I miss the X-Men. I miss my Illyana. I miss Piotr. I still like clothes.

I try the clothes on indoors, one after another, and none of them feel right. I don’t feel right. Am I just not the girl that I used to be? Do I need to get more serious, start acting more adult, dressing more adult? Does that mean more like work clothes, androgynous, uniforms? Or more like… Courtney Ross? or Emma Frost? That can’t be right.

Also my best friend left her sword in me when she died. I’m going to have to handle that one now. The clothes can wait. Maybe I just shouldn’t care about clothes any more. Maybe that’s something I should give up. (I want to dress sexy now, too; is that me, or the sword?)

Maybe I should stop worrying about how other girls see me. If I’m going to be dating men from now on—and it’s something I’d like to try, honestly; they are hot, and they seem to be into me—all they’re gonna see is a spunky girl in a superhero uniform anyway. Unless they’re painters and pencil artists like Piotr. Why not give them what they want? 

The people who really saw me, the people who understood how I wanted to be seen, the people who got all the clothes—all three of them, honestly, or four if you count Piotr—they’re all gone. And Kurt—he cares about me, but he doesn’t care how I look. I think he’ll understand. Uniforms will make it easier anyway; fewer distractions while saving the world.

_Last night_

Illyana took me to kickass rock shows. Rachel tried hard to get me into electronica. Piotr made an eight-hour Spotify playlist consisting entirely of Russian and Eastern European orchestra music that he considered romantic. Wisdom collected old blues records which I pretended to like. (Ew.) Quill, I can't even with those songs. I’m still in a couple of online fan groups for Cats Laughing, and of course I like Fairport. and ex-Fairport members. I don’t think it is possible to read Elfquest with pleasure and not like Fairport.

But honestly? Half of my own faves are Broadway musicals. Doug and I used to have long conversations about early vs. late Sondheim, about what was wrong with Rent, about why so many people still love Les Mis. Usually he derailed them by explaining the phonetics of lyrics writing, and when he got really tired he would spot-translate Sweeney Todd into Mongolian, and that meant it was time to get off the modem and go to sleep. But still.

And yet there are parts of myself I’d never exactly seen in a musical until tonight. A couple of parts. The mom singing “Maybe not right now,” over and over. (What is she waiting for? I think I know.) 

And young Alison. “Someone just came in the door. Like no one I ever saw before. I don’t know where you came from.” And then she breaks into rhyme. “Your swagger, and your bearing, and the just-right clothes you’re wearing.”

And as it that weren’t enough. “I thought it was supposed to be wrong. But you seem OK with being strong.”

I’m 13 1/2. I’m in a malt shop. I’m in a dance studio. I’m outdoors on Muir Island with a box. I’m indoors, frowning at what’s in the box, at what I used to like and can’t let myself like. I’m definitely not trying hard enough to avoid phasing through what must have been a really expensive seat up here near the footlights. I have no idea what Kurt paid. I don’t care. My clean fingernails are digging into his blue fur. He’s seen this show before. I haven’t. He knew I should go, and he knew neither Piotr, nor anyone else in my life that way, would take me.

I’m not young Alison. I’m not very butch. I’ve never wondered if I was trans. (My friends have, though.) I like dressing up. But that moment in what the song calls a luncheonette… I would call it a malt shop. It’s all coming back.

I like dressing up. It makes me feel strong. Why did I stop?

Who do I want to see me for who I am?

_Today_

“Professor Kitty?” Serves me right for getting so lost in thought. Now Pixie looks worried.

“Was that too personal a question?”

“Thanks for checking. You can ask me anything, Megan. I’m a teacher now. But I don’t think it’s a question I can answer right now. Can I walk you to class?”

“Absolutely, Professor K. Can Trevor come with us?”

“I don’t see why not.”

Who do I want to see me for who I am?

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired not only by the monthly challenge but by one friend's question about the outfits, another's realisation that "Ring of Keys" could be the scene in the malt shop from UXM 129, and a third friend's undying devotion to these characters; not 100% sure how many of those friends would want to be named here, but they are absolutely all over this story and I'll name any or all of them if they like.
> 
> Set during X-Men Gold (2017). Dialogue in the flashback scenes comes verbatim from the comics in which the scenes take place: in order, X-Men Prime; Uncanny X-Men 139; Uncanny X-Men 129; Wolverine: First Class 12; Excalibur 83.


End file.
